Marching to the beat

In response to my entry yesterday about feeling tired and lazy, my neighbor gave me some advice. He’s a walker himself  he has to be, given his rambunctious black Lab would probably tear down our apartment building if he didn’t get his 2.5 miles every day.

So this was Abel’s suggestion: “Switch up the playlist on your MP3 player, that’s how I combat the sluggishness,” he wrote in an email. “Recently I added a little bit of old school gangsta rap to my regular walking mix. Listening to ‘Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster,’ in the world between my headphones, pushes me to finish that last 15 minutes.”

This makes a lot of sense. I listen to music when I’m walking that I’d probably never listen to any other time, because it has a fast beat and keeps me energized. For example, I added “99 Problems” by Jay-Z to my playlist last week and I noticed I was walking faster. This works with ’80s hits too, like “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. But if I listen to the same music over and over, even if it’s fast-paced, it sort of loses its motivating powers.

Actually, my slug-like state the other day may have been caused by the complicated and depressing podcast of “This American Life” that I was listening to, the one about the mortgage crisis. I love “This American Life,” and usually it helps because I don’t want to end my walk early and miss the end of the show, but this wasn’t one of the more funny and cheery ones. (But that was a really interesting show, so you should check it out.)

Music is so important to some people (like me) when they’re exercising. Others say they use the time to meditate, which I admire but totally don’t understand. One of my editors watches “The Price Is Right” while he pedals on the stationary bike at the YMCA. Hey, whatever gets you through the workout. I watch trashy reality TV while I lift weights at home.

And sometimes, music is absolutely essential to the workout. Like the spinning classes I took a few years ago, which were synchronized to a CD the instructor brought in. Same with BODYPUMP.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a mix of old country, a little bit of new country (Eleven Hundred Springs! Check them out!) and the random Jay-Z or Beyonce track.